


husk

by cosmofluous



Series: the interludes [3]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Chapter 58, Gen, One Shot, Tokyo Ghoul:Re - Freeform, kaneki being hopeless idiot, kind of a pityfest, reaperneki is ooc because i clearly wrote this before spoilers wow, speculative interlude, what even is purposeful writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 16:50:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5633986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmofluous/pseuds/cosmofluous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is nothing to have and no one to love and no one to lose, either.</p><p>This is how it should have always been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	husk

**Author's Note:**

> this very pointless sample is more a writing exercise than anything else and i apologise in advance.

He moves out of the Chateau.

It’s the first thing that has to be done. Coward that he is, he doesn’t go back at all. He leaves all his things behind. He can buy new furniture, new clothes. New books, if he wants. His wages are high enough. He can’t buy a new squad, nor does he want one. They don’t assign him to a squad, or a squad to him. He and Director Washuu finally agree on something. He works best alone.

The CCG arranges his new living quarters. There are plenty of choices after the last operation. He looks at the list of properties they give him and points to one at random. A lackey passes him an offer from Arima, to live with him until he has everything sorted out. He declines with a smile. He makes it look as sincere as he can.

He barely escapes spending the first night in the CCG’s medical wing. The pale-faced staff insisted on properly treating and binding his severed arm as if he were human. He unnerved them as best as he could. ‘I’ll be fine after I’ve eaten,’ he told them and it worked. He had considered flashing his kakugan, but that might have been too much.

So the first night, he unlocks the door to the new apartment and steps in with the clothes on his back, his quinque, and a body in a bag. The rooms contain the bare bones of abandoned furniture. There’s a polished wooden coffee table stranded in the middle of the living room. A dish rack sits next to the sink and two forlorn, but intact, glasses hide in one cupboard. A decent sized fridge is the stern sentry of a gleaming, modern kitchen. He does not know what it is guarding. There is no one to cook for anymore.

There is a bed frame in the master bedroom and, ironically enough, the skeleton of a large bookcase in what must have been the study. He leaves his quinque in the study and shuts the door on it. He finds a broom in a storage closet and sweeps up vaguely. As he wanders around the unfamiliar space, he comes across a coffeepot and a grinder. There aren’t any beans though, so he puts them back where he found them. He folds his white dove’s coat and puts it on top of a surviving stool. Then he eats.

He suspects the CCG has all manner of restrictions around his eating habits, and that Haise obeyed them not only because they were rules, but because he believed killing was wrong. At least, that it would be wrong if he was the one taking the initiative and doing the killing. Unlike Haise, however, he knows he has done far worse than dismember the corpse of a suicide victim, pack the limbs into a bag, eat half, and store half in the fridge. Luckily, the electricity is already on.

He can’t stop looking at his stump. It’s not unlike an optical illusion. He glances down, or reaches to grab something, and suddenly remembers that Rose cut it off. His skin has sealed up at the end, the flesh lumpy around broken shards of his ulna and radius. It itches as if, at any moment, the flesh will erupt into empty space and form the bones and muscles anew.

In the shower, he wonders idly what his victim was thinking when she died. What was she running from? _Who_ was she running from? What did the moment of impact feel like? He knows that there is no such thing as a painless death. But did it hurt after the moment of impact, all the way to the end? It was surprisingly easy to locate a suicide hotspot different from the one that Yomo had shown him.

Blood looks different in water. It’s a much brighter red, verging on orange, spider-webbing down his body as it is dispersed by rivulets of water. He turns off the water when the blood stops flowing. When he steps out onto cold tile, he remembers that he doesn’t have any towels. He wipes the fog from the mirrors and sees that the white remaining in his hair is more starched-looking and faded in colour than it was before. He develops fine control with his kagune, standing in front of the mirror and trimming his hair with a blade-shaped appendage. He washes the cuttings down the sink. He isn’t dry when he’s finished, but he puts his clothes back on anyway. The fabric sticks uncomfortably to his damp skin. He forgot about the rips and bloodstains in his clothes.

He walks out of the still-steaming bathroom and turns off all the lights. There aren’t any curtains to close, and he doesn’t bother checking the door. He wraps himself in his jacket, rolls under the coffee table, and goes to sleep.

He wakes to darkness. Blinking rapidly, he realises he is staring into someone’s shadow. Cold, grey morning light streams in from the windows on either side of the shadow. Akira crouches down, skirt riding up, then changes her mind and sits in _seiza_ on his neatly, newly swept floor. Startled, he tries to get up and hits his head on the underside of the coffee table.

‘You’ll catch a cold,’ she says mildly.

Clutching his head, he attempts to shuffle sideways out from under the table. Of course, his other hand is not there to catch him when he takes his left off the ground. Pain shoots up his arm when he lands on his stump, which has apparently grown a centimetre or two in the night. Shaking it off, he manages to sit up. He can taste the dust motes hanging in the air. Akira’s face is a smooth, unreadable mask, but there is a tightness around her mouth that she can’t hide. He thinks that his wildly mussed hair and ragged clothes are very nearly reflected in her implacable, mirror-like gaze.

‘You’re still as clumsy as ever,’ she observes in a voice that doesn’t tremble.

He doesn’t answer. He has discovered that it’s hard to sit in _seiza_ properly when missing an arm. He puddles his jacket in his lap and hides his hand and stump in the folds. The white fabric is splotched brown from his shower-damp, bloody clothes and hair, and maybe he bled on it when his arm began regenerating. It’s annoying. He prefers black.

‘How did you get in?’ he asks dully.

‘The door was unlocked.’ Akira’s tone is curt. She glances around the bare space. Her voice softens fractionally. ‘Haise, what do you think you’re doing?’

He’s not Haise, but he’s not stupid enough to admit that. So he looks around the room and tries to see it as Haise might. But Haise doesn’t have an opinion to share, because Haise is still sleeping. He hesitates.

This time, Akira takes his silence for shame. She sighs. ‘Can’t you stay at the Chateau or at Arima’s until you get some decent furniture in here?’

Maybe there’s something wrong with him, but he doesn’t see what’s wrong with sleeping on the floor for a night or two. And if that’s wrong, it’s certainly not the thing that is most drastically wrong with him. In fact, he’s found that sleeping on the floor is more comfortable than sleeping in a chair.

‘I...’ He scrambles for an answer she will accept. ‘I don’t want to go back, when he... when Shirazu can’t.’

_(Let’s go home.)_

Akira is still. ‘What about Arima’s place?’ she asks gently.

‘I want to be alone.’

The silence remains and grows. His severed arm is itching again. He’s also hungry again, much too quickly, considering the few measly centimetres of growth he’s gained from last night’s extra meal.

He only realises the genius of his last statement when Akira gets up, taking the words as a cue to leave. She stands at the door and gives him a long, searching look. He hopes his behaviour in front of her has been in line with Haise’s.

‘Don’t blame yourself too much, Haise,’ she says, and leaves, closing the door behind her.

He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. It would have taken some troublesome explanation if Akira saw the bloody bag in the kitchen, and the body parts in the fridge.

He looks down at the bloodstained coat in his lap. First, he would have to borrow some decent clothes from somewhere. Then get a hold of some new bandages. Then, shopping. He needs to keep up a consistent front. He sits staring the closed door for another good half hour, making the mental adjustments necessary to see Arima. And fool him into believing that he is still Haise.

He takes a deep breath. Phase one, start.

**Author's Note:**

> hah, i hope kaneki actually has a plan. is anyone else being crushed by :re?


End file.
